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Hi, I've got an Audio Innovations S500 in the workshop, one of many of these I've worked on. Nothing unusual in the layout therefore but this one has an oscillation /motorboating when the volume pot is turned up towards max. It only occurs when no source is connected and stops immediately a source is connected.

The design uses an ECC83 valve as the line input gain stage and was built without grid stopper resistors. The original circuit showed a 50pf cap between the grid and ground which this amp and no other example I've seen had. I've fitted the 50pf caps and 1k grid stopper resistors with no result whatsoever. If I remove the line input ECC83 the oscillation stops.

All electrolytics have been replaced which has also had no effect on this behaviour.

Anybody any suggestions before I get back to investigations next week?Thanks

The motorboating /oscillation is on both channels. Input rocketry is all connected correctly

I'm not talking about the wiring, I'm asking if the phono sockets are touching the chassis.They should be insulated with the mounting washers, obviously the phono ground connections connect to the circuit ground.But if the sockets are also touching the chassis it will motor-boat. The only way to tell is disconnect the ground connection from the sockets and test if there is a short from sockets to chassis.

At your own risk!How are the heaters grounded on the input tubes? Is it a CT on the heater winding.If it is try disconnecting the heater ground and try floating the heaters with a 0.1uF 600V cap from heater CT to ground.See if the motorboating stops. (its just a test)Remember the capacitor will charge up with any leakage through the tubes i.e. the heaters could float up in voltage.

Hi,That is more or less the circuit but this example does not have the 220k input caps and the heaters are floating. It's also been converted to triode mode, and has the Border Patrol choke input power supply, the latter of which has never affected oscillation.ThanksDavid

But motorboating is often referred to a problem where the 'oscillation' is fed back from OP stage to IP stage through the supply lines. The power amp is consuming a lot of current which results in a supply voltage changing to the music signal. This changing DC-voltage is also fed to the input amp and may in worst case cause the system to oscillate. This oscillation sounds like a motorboat, hence the name 'motorboating'.

I think major issue is bad separation of the supply to the input and output amplifiers.

_________________Magnus

“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”―Lewis Carroll

It's not pre power supply separation. I've worked on around s dozen of these and this is the first to oscillate. Adding lr8 regs to the driver and phono staged face the usual improvement in sound quality but made no difference to the motorboating /oscillation

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